The Grove is Left Alive

General Summary

1489 DR - Spring - 22, Mirtul (5) - Sword Coast, Oakhurst, Sunless Citadel

• • After resting in town to recover and consider their experiences (gained level 2), the crew heads back into the citadel to continue looking for the orb and apple
• • Returning through the Goblin warrens to the throne of the self-styled goblin chief, they find the goblins have absconded, and finish looting out their abodes
• • They climb down the vined shaft, lit by purple fungus into the lower level
• • The come across a hunters camp, only to find him and his two pet rats in residence
• o A fierce but brief battle breaks out, and the hunter and his pets are slain
• o Lucyan is bitten by a rat and feels infested by maggots and a buzzing in his ears that won’t subside
• o Damien hears the buzzing too but as Abyssal speech telling him he is doing it wrong
• • The crew explores a passage that leads deeper than they have ever gone, discovering an oubliette locked by a magic door
• o The door is unlocked through Abyssal language (The True War) after Huden translates the writing
• o Inside are open chains and Abyssal writing all over the walls that seem to insult the one one was held here.
• o There is an orb set into the wall radiating massive magic. Damien pries it free and Huden identifies it as a Key to something that is attuned to a specifically powerful individual
• • The crew returns to the southern passage, finding a fire snake lair, and an empty dragon shrine.
• • Damien hears a voice at the edge of his vision (which seems too good in this darkness) telling him they are with him, he follows it back to the Oubliette, where the words on the walls now tell him “We are with you Always” He returns to the group a bit dazed.
• o The voice tells him not to give up the orb.
• • They then move east to the laboratory, only to spectacularly enter with breaking vials and crashing equipment, drawing all goblin workers to ambush them
• o During the fight Lucyan Wild shapes, only to actually become a rotten horse surrounded by flies and filled with maggots, a Goblin runs in fear.
• • Wining the fight, they find a diseased rat, which speaks to Lucyan though others don’t hear, they also find many plant based experiments
• • Continuing they explore the arboretum, lit by fungus and growing plants with the aid of skeletons and a Bugbear farmer, who fells Damien with a single blow from it’s sickle glaive but is taken down by the others.
• • The arboretum leads to a dragon shrine to Ashardalon, lit in red. Praying at the shrine grants a boon, but draws the attack of a shadow hidden behind the statue.
• • Moving through the dragon library they descend the stairs deeper underground, finding Belaks study and workroom.
• o Lucyan discovers a book of druidic lore over life and death, that helps him understand the buzzing as speech and the pieces start to fall together. This grows into a communion with the vermin and infestation organisms of death and subsequent life.
• o Fallentree finds a book “Secret of the Fire Lords” which explodes in a blast of cold upon reading.
• • Moving into the larger grove, they foil a goblin ambush and prepare for a large battle. Fending off a wave of Twig Blights, they proceed to the center where the Gulthias tree, grown from a stake that struck down a vampire on this spot.
• o Belak tells them they know nothing, they listen, the other heroes are here but seem to be converted by the tree.
• o They request the apple, Belak offers it if they will plant the seeds, and they agree.
• • The crew returns to the cruel female voice and breaks in the door, only to spur on a fight with a Wyrmling dragon! The dragon breaths ice on the entire crew, felling everyone expect Damien. Damien attacks wildly, his blade becoming sheathed in black flames as he skewers the Dragon in it's final attack, barely winning.
• o They are then left to leave the Sunless Citadel in peace
• • Upon returning to the town, they avoid the family of the heroes and do not share the troubles of the citadel with the townsfolk, who continue growing blights for Belak.
• • They return to the Yawning portal in Waterdeep and meet their contact, the odd halfling .
• o They refuse to give up the orb, and the halfling shouts explitives and threats and vanishes without paying them their reward
• • Sabyn discusses the rooms and suggests there is more at work behind the scenes than they yet know. She gifts a book “On Truth” written by a Solomon Celadon (Sabyn insinuates this is gospel from the Black Sun) to Huden.
• • Fallentree begins to feel the blood coursing through his veins, and in return can feel the power within that blood rise within him.

Rewards Granted

Of note only: The Apple of the Gulthias Tree The Orb taken from the Oubliette "On life and Death" book written in Common and Druidic Several Scrolls Trinkets and Gold and Gems Ancient Dwarven Writings

Missions/Quests Completed

Completed the Sunless Citadel by agreeing to Belaks terms and leaving with the apple in peace Told the town they acquired an apple and nothing about the ongoings of the Gulthias tree or Belak Did not help bring peace to the relatives of the heroes who died and left them in the thrall of the tree Allowed Belak to continue spreading Twig Blights from the trees fruit Reneged on the contract to acquire the orb and fruit and kept both, slighting the funny halfling that left in a fury Advanced to level 3

Character(s) interacted with

Made Friendly with Belak Made an enemy of the odd halfling by refusing to turn over the orb Left the town of Oakhurst to its fate